California Advanced Services Fund 2015 Annual Report

California Advanced Services Fund 2015 Annual Report

Through the CASF Program, the CPUC continues to make steady progress toward closing the digital divide in California. As of December 31, 2015, there have been 52 CASF infrastructure project grants awarded and 27 completed. Together, the 52 projects are expected to provide broadband access to 301,574 unserved and underserved households combined. The 27 completed projects and 3 partially completed projects offer broadband service in their respective areas with a household subscribership of 3,923. The regional Consortia continue to advance initiatives aimed at increasing broadband deployment, access and adoption in the geographic regions they represent. Additionally, there were 86 public housing infrastructure grants approved affecting 5,678 units, and 19 adoption projects approved to provide digital literacy training to public housing locations with 3,152 residents.

The statutory goal of the program is to award funding by December 31, 2015 for projects that will provide broadband access to no less than 98% of California households. The CPUC considers an area served if broadband is available at speeds of 6 Mbps downstream and 1.5 Mbps upstream, or greater. Based on this definition of “served” availability, Table 1, below, shows that the 98 percent broadband access goal has been met for households located in urban areas, while only an estimated 43 percent of households in rural areas have access to broadband at served speeds. Statewide, an estimated 95 percent of households have access to wireline broadband at served speeds. Regarding mobile broadband, the majority of households in all areas of California do not have mobile services available at served speeds. Statewide, only an estimated 16 percent of households have access to mobile broadband at served speeds.